LPG would be moved by rail daily over Watkins Glen Park

Crestwood Midstream Partners is proposing to LPG move by rail over the Watkins Glen gorge. Opponents re worried about the potential for a rail accident that could cause a fire bomb or heavier than air gas cloud in the gorge.
SIMON WHEELER / Staff Video

Gas extracted from Seneca Lake storage would travel through Watkins Glen State Park east

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From left, Benoit Briet, and Elise Dupont, both of Lille, France and Thomas Poulet of Paris, descend the top of the Gorge Trail at Watkins Glen State Park. The railroad bridge in the background would carry trains loaded with liquid petroleum gas if Crestwood Midstream's plans for a storage facility north of Watkins Glen are approved. The sign, left tells the story of how the previous bridge was destroyed in a 1935 flood.(Photo: SIMON WHEELER / Staff Photo)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

The bridge over Watkins Glen gorge will carry daily trains with the explosive cargos of butane and propane

In a worst case scenario %u2014 something emergency responders must plan for %u2014 cars would spill into the rocky gorge and explode or rupture.

The chance of a fatality from a rail accident along any given length of track serving the LPG project is less than one in a million.

A gas storage proposal along Seneca Lake calls for trains — each loaded with pressurized and explosive cargoes of butane and propane — to cross daily over a bridge spanning Watkins Glen State Park.

After crossing the bridge, most of the liquefied propane gas (LPG) trains will head east, traveling along Norfolk Southern tracks through Corning, Elmira, Owego, Johnson City and Binghamton.

While trains with hazardous cargoes are under scrutiny across North America, the chief concern among some public officials with the proposal is the 80-year-old open-decked bridge spanning the gorge 75 feet in the air.

For investors in Crestwood Midstream Partners' LPG project, Watkins Glen State Park is a chasm that must be crossed. For an estimated 530,000 Finger Lakes tourists each year, the park is a major attraction that must be explored.

As precarious as the bridge may appear from far above and far below, the chance of cars — each loaded with 33,000 gallons of gas — derailing and spilling into the gorge reportedly is slim. According to a risk assessment commissioned by Crestwood, the annual probability of a fatal accident involving an LPG rail car in the Finger Lakes is one in 5 million.

The trestle and the tracks were rebuilt in 1935 after being washed out by a flood. They are inspected routinely, although requests to see the report must be granted through a records access officer with the Federal Railroad Administration. A request made during the reporting of this story is pending.

While some LPG trains could reach 32 cars, the daily average would be closer to seven, according to company officials.

Crestwood's assurances, and a lack of convenient access to records detailing the condition of the bridge, do not sit comfortably with all stakeholders. A train of highly explosive hazardous material routinely crossing directly over one of the region's most revered tourist attractions and public gathering places presents, some think, unique circumstances that might warrant some extra consideration.

Schuyler County legislators Michael Lausell and Van A. Harp have asked that Schuyler County, the lead government agency for emergency planning, be granted party status in discussions over Crestwood's permit application pending with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The Schuyler County board, which has no jurisdictional authority over the Crestwood project, passed a 5-3 resolution in support of the Crestwood storage plan last June.

In that vote, Lausell was one of three dissenters, while Harp voted for the plan. But both agree in their brief that rail transport of LPG in Schuyler County, in general, raises "significant concerns."

Moreover, an accident on the bridge spanning the state park "raises the specter of a disaster of near unimaginable dimensions," according to the legislators brief. Potential causes include acts of nature, human error, mechanical failure and terrorism.

In a worst-case scenario — something emergency responders must anticipate — cars would spill into the rocky gorge and explode or rupture. The resulting fireball or poisonous gas cloud would be trapped by the narrow walls of the canyon and funneled downstream toward the Village of Watkins Glen, burning or asphyxiating unsuspecting tourists with nowhere to escape.

“There are just so many variables, wind weather, the size of the accident, the amount released. We can't account for all of these kinds of things at a given spot. That bridge is a small section of track. We have to look at the broad system.
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Bill Kennedy, director of Schuyler County Emergency Services

Computer modeling of a single car rupturing in an open space shows the contents would travel about a third of a mile, according to existing plans on file with the Schuyler County EMS. Impacts would be compounded, however, by the channeling effects of the gorge and the likelihood that a derailment or structural failure would involve multiple cars — factors not in the computer model.

Bill Kennedy, director of Schuyler County Emergency Services, said models are limited help for propane rail accidents.

"There are just so many variables — wind weather, the size of the accident, the amount released," he said. "We can't account for all of these kinds of things at a given spot. That bridge is a small section of track. We have to look at the broad system."

Propane unique

Propane gas is heavier than air and, if it does not explode, tends to flow to low spots. Emergency response plans instruct people to run for higher ground to escape asphyxiation.

The trestle crosses the gorge above the park's highest end. From there, the gradient drops hundreds of feet along steep stone steps and narrow paths over a mile and a half. County Legislator Lausell said it is "entirely conceivable" that a cloud of gas could reach the village, a low point at the mouth of the gorge.

"There would be nowhere to run," Lausell said. "I'm not playing off fear. I'm not trying to sway opinion based on emotion. It's about public safety. It's my job to ask these questions."

So far, the answers he has received are general assurances by authorities that the rail system is safe.

Spanning 303 feet, the track over the gorge is one of more than 100 major bridges Norfolk Southern maintains between Watkins Glen and Buffalo, according to a letter rail officials sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo in response to concerns about LPG shipments over the gorge. In the last decade, the rail company has experienced only three "bridge failure incidences" on the 10,000 bridges it maintains across its system, the letter states.

“We are confident in our ability to traverse the Watkins Glen Gorge Bridge without incident.”

The letter did not elaborate on the severity or nature of the three failures.

"We are confident in our ability to traverse the Watkins Glen Gorge Bridge without incident," stated Michael R. Fesen, government relations manager for Norfolk Southern, in the letter to Cuomo on Oct. 30, 2014.

Dave Pidgeon, a Norfolk Southern spokesman, said the bridge over the gorge has no weight or speed restrictions. The railroad routinely inspects the bridge but does not make those records public. "If the Federal Railroad Administration requests them, then we provide them to that agency," he said.

Not just a local issue

Officials stand by the overall safety record of both the rail industry and the LPG industry. They commonly cite the long-standing safety record of shipments to and from other storage facilities owned by Crestwood in Bath, Steuben County, and Owego in Tioga County.

When considered in the broad context of the number of trains and the number of miles those trains travel nationwide, the risk of failure at any given spot is small. More than 99 percent of all hazardous waste shipments reach their destination without a release caused by a train accident. That figure, from the Association of American Railroads, is cited widely by the rail industry, and featured in the Schuyler County Emergency Response Plan and a letter to the state DEC from Norfolk Southern in support of Crestwood's proposal.

Despite the reported safety record, accidents have occurred.

Poor track maintenance, collisions, excessive speed, mechanical failures and weather can all lead to derailments, according to the EMS report. In April, a train was literally blown of a bridge in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, during an intense storm.

More recently, flash floods in early June washed out parts of a rail bed under several sections of Norfolk Southern spur in Schuyler County that services U.S. Salt, a Crestwood subsidiary and partner in the gas storage business. Railroad crews were on the scene making repairs shortly after, and no rail accidents were reported.

Unlike roads and highway bridges, which are owned, maintained and inspected by public entities, railways bridges are private. They are overseen by federal and state agencies, but those agencies count on rail operators to inspect them and accurately report the results.

A Google search of "trains" and "explosion" yields dozens of examples of close calls, accidents, fires and death within the past two years. Most of these reports involve crude oil and liquid propane gas traveling from developing shale fields throughout the country.

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The railway suspended an approximate 172 feet above the Watkins Glen State Park gorge near the north entrance would be a route for moving propane into Crestwood Midstream, should the company use salt mines on site for LPG storage.(Photo: KELLY GAMPEL / Staff Photo)

History of accidents

The most notorious accident involved a train carrying crude from the Bakkan oil field in North Dakota to refineries in the East. The train derailed in Lac-Megantic Quebec in July 2013, with a resulting explosion killing 47 people and destroying 40 buildings.

Most of the accidents did not take lives, but some sparked fires that burned for days and prompted mass evacuations.

New York has become a "central route" for shipments of petroleum from the booming domestic shale operations in the South and West, and major markets and refineries in the East, according to a report commissioned by Cuomo's administration, which has urged federal regulators to strengthen rail safety guidelines.

Crude oil produced from domestic shale travels through communities in 22 New York counties, including the cities of Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, Albany and Plattsburgh to refineries on the Atlantic coast. Citing risks of derailments and explosions, Cuomo has called for increased track inspections, updating emergency response plans and increasing coordination with federal and local agencies for emergency response.

Though both crude and LPG are volatile fuels produced by tight rock formations through the unconventional and controversial process known as "fracking," there is a critical difference in how each is handled.

LPG must be pressurized to keep it in a liquid state for transport, so it is shipped in tankers designed to withstand greater stress. Crude typically is not shipped in containers built for pressure. Crude from the Bakkan shale, which has become a target over rail safety issues, tends to contain light hydrocarbons that can separate and pressurize a tanker as it travels.

The state's safety crackdown was prompted by accidents associated with the unique dangers of Bakkan crude, said Jennifer K. Post, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, but it applies to LPG trains as well.

"We're talking about explosive fuels, produced far away from where they are used, and shipped long distances through communities," said Josh Fox, an influential filmmaker who won an Emmy for "Gasland," an exposé of the fracking industry. "It's a dumb and old idea that we don't need anymore."

In blogs, films and interviews, Fox has popularized a term for rail shipments from domestic shale gas fields: "bomb trains." Last month, he was arrested and released after joining other activists in blockading the Crestwood site on Route 14 along Seneca Lake.

Lausell does not consider himself an activist, but he is seeking a more rigorous vetting of the issues over LPG in the Finger Lakes. "We need to have all the information on the table," he said.